Team-Bath-Netball-Newsletter-November-2012

Current Thinking on Skill Acquisition in Sport
Historically, skill acquisition has
been described as the internal
processes that bring about
relatively permanent changes in
the learners movement capabilities.
How these changes occur have
been theorized greatly within the
literature. Traditional theories view
the Brain (CNS) is responsible for
creation, selection and timing of
motor programmes, that storage of
movement patterns is limited due
to the size of the brain and that
variability is negative during
performance.
Recent research suggests that
one’s perceptions, memories,
intentions, plans and actions may
not be best conceived of as entities
stored in the CNS. Rather, they
may be better understood as selforganising,
macroscopic patterns
formed by the interaction of the
many system components and key
constraints in the environment. The
system components may include
the neurons in the brain whilst the
constraints can be grouped into
three categories: Organismic,
Environmental and task.
Organismic constraints are the
characteristics of the person
including genetics, weight,
cognitions, emotions etc
Environmental Constraints are
global, physical variables in nature
such as light, temperature and
altitude.
Task constraints are more
specific to the performance and
context and can include task goals,
playing area and playing surface.
During activity, the interaction
between the three constraints
results in the emergence of
different states of coordination
(behaviour) that becomes refined
through practice and experience.
This theory is named as Dynamic
Systems theory.
Through guided discovery
approaches to coaching (view
coaches as facilitators rather than
dictators of the learning process),
these constraints can be
manipulated to improve either
technical or tactical aspects of the
athletes performance through selforganisation.
Some coaches
however have misinterpreted
discovery approaches to
deemphasize the importance of
technique and their session’s
amount to nothing more than game
play, devoid of informed instruction.
An example of how a netball coach
could manipulate the constraints to
increase the leg drive when
shooting can be seen below:
Task
Court Dimensions: Increase the net
post height
Equipment: Resistance bands from
below, Use a weighted ball
Organismic
Segment Coordination: Shoot
kneeling
Environmental
Surface: Shooting from a mound of
sand
Access to sensory information:
Watch a model performance
Defence of the Centre Pass
- Force the receivers high and wide so that it is more difficult to feed
directly into the circle on the second phase.
- If GA is key player – force that player to receive the first centre pass and
then restrict her in the following plays.
- C to use variety – sometimes at 0.9m from attacking Centre and
sometimes back close to the transverse line in different places.
- C and WD to develop good communication e.g. mark the WA and the WD
pick up the opposition C after the Centre Pass has been delivered.
- WA and GA have important role to play ensuring the opposition GD and
WD are unable to provide an easy option.
- Players should position so that they prevent quick, straight line play to the
circle.